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'■> . » 






Lyman Copeland Draper 



A MEMOIR 



By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 

Secretary of the State Hisiorical Socikty 
OF Wisconsin 



[Reprinted from Vol. XI L, Wisconsin IlisloiiidI 

Collections \ 




MADISON, WISCONSIN 

DEMOCRAT PRINTING COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS 

1893 



•„;■'», >r ■•■■'\!f*.-. 



Lyman Copeland Draper 



A MEMOIR 



By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 

Secretary of the State Historical Society 
OF Wisconsin 



I Reprinted from Vol. XII., Wisconsin Historical 

Collections \ 



MADISON, WISCONSIN 

DEMOCRAT PRINTING COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS 

1892 



2 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii. 

father, Luke, was twice captured by the English during the 
same war. When Lyman was three years of age, the fam- 
ily removed to Lockport, on the Erie canal. 

Luke Draper was by turns grocer, tavern-keeper and 
farmer, and as soon as his son Lyman could be of use 
about the house, the store or the land, he was obliged to do 
his full share of family labor. Up to the age of fifteen, the 
boy's experiences were those of the average village lad of 
the period — the almost continuous performance of miscel- 
laneous duties, including family shoe repairing, the gather- 
ing and selling of wild berries and occasional jobs for the 
neighbors. One summer was spent in acting as a hod-car- 
rier for a builder in the village, at the wage of twelve and 
one-half cents per day. From his fifteenth year to his 
eighteenth, he served as clerk in various village shops. 
During this time, after having gained all the education 
possible from the village school, he added to its meager 
curriculum the reading of what few books were obtainable 
by purchase or borrowing in the then frontier settlement, 
and established something of a local reputation as a youth 
of letters. 

Even at that early age the lad's taste for Revolutionary 
lore was well developed. He came naturally by it. At 
Luke Draper's family fireside, the deeds of Revolutionary 
heroes always formed the chief topic of conversation. 
There were yet living many veterans of the Conti- 
nental army, who were always welcome to the hos- 
pitality of the Draper household, while the war of 18i"-^-15 
was an event of but a few years previous. The boy was 
early steeped in knowledge of the facts and traditions of 
Anglo-American fights and western border forays, so that 
it was in after years impossible for him to remember when 
he first became inspired with the passion for obtaining in- 
formation as to the events in which his ancestors took 
part. 

As a boy he never neglected an opportunity to see and 
converse with distinguished pioneers and patriots. In 1825, 
when but ten jears of age, he feasted his eyes upon La 
Fayette, during the latter's celebrated visit to the United 



1833-34-] LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 3 

States; and to the last declared he had a vivid recollection 
of the lineaments of that noble friend of the Revolutionary 
cause. Lewis Cass, DeWitt Clinton, and other celebrities 
of that day, he also saw and heard at Lockport, while the' 
presence in the village, on various occasions, of the noted 
Seneca chiefs, Tommy Jimmy, Major Henry O'Bail and 
others, were, to the young enthusiast in border-lore, like 
visitations from a realm of fancy. La Fayette was the 
subject of young Draper's first school composition, while 
his first article for the press, published in the Rochester 
Gem for April 6, 1833, was a sketch of Charles Carroll, of 
Carrollton, the last of the "signers." One of the first his- 
torical works he ever read was Campbell's Annals of 
Tyron County; or, Border Warfare of New York, pub- 
lished in 183L This and other publications of the time 
were replete with lurid accounts of border disturbances, 
well calculated to fire the imagination of youth. 

Peter A. Remsen, a cotton factor at Mobile, Alabama, 
had married young Draper's cousin, and to Mobile went the 
enthusiastic historical student, now eighteen years of age 
staying with Remsen until May of the following year. 
"While in Mobile, Draper chiefly occupied himself in col- 
lecting information regarding the career of the famous 
Creek chief, Weatherford, many of whose contemporaries 
lived in the neighborhood of the Alabama metropolis. 
These manuscript notes, laboriously written down fifty- 
eight years ago, are, like the greater portion of his ma- 
terials for history, still mere unused literary bricks and 
stone. 

In 1834, during his nineteenth year, Draper entered the 
college at Granville, Ohio, now styled Denison university. 
Here he remained as an undergraduate for over two years. 
He appears to have made a good record as a student, but 
was compelled from lack of money to leave the institution. 
Remsen had returned to New York from the south, and 
was now living in the neighborhood of Alexander, Genesee 
county. Draper's father was a poor man and unable either 
to help his son toward an education or to support him in 
idleness. Lyman was undersized, not robust, and had 



4 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii. 

tastes which seemed to fit him only for an unprofitable life 
of letters. Remsen offered the young man a congenial 
home, without cost, and to this patron he again went upon 
leaving Granville. For a time he was placed at Hudson 
River seminary, in Stockport, his studies here being fol- 
lowed up with an extended course of private reading, 
chiefly historical. 

Doddridge, Flint, Withers, and afterward Hall, were 
the early historians of the border, and the young student 
of their works found that on many essential points and in 
most minor incidents there were great discrepancies be- 
tween them. It was in 1838, when twenty-three years of 
age, that Draper conceived the idea of writing a series of 
biographies of trans- Alleghany pioneers, in which he should 
be able by dint of original investigation to fill the gaps 
and correct the errors which so marred all books then 
extant upon this fertile specialty. This at once became his 
controlling thought, and he entered upon its execution with 
an enthusiasm which never lagged through a half century 
spent in the assiduous collection of material for what he 
always deemed the mission of his life; but unfortunately 
he only collected and investigated, and the biographies 
were never written. 

From the Remsen home. Draper began an extensive and 
long-continued correspondence with prominent pioneers all 
along the border line — with Drs. Daniel Drake and S. P. 
Hildreth, and Colonel John McDonald, of Ohio; William C. 
Preston, of South Carolina; Colonel Richard M, Johnson, 
Charles S. Todd, Major Bland W. Ballard, Dr. John Crog- 
han, and Joseph R. Underwood, of Kentucky; ex-Governor 
David Campbell, of Virginia, Colonel William Martin and 
Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, and scores of others of 
almost equal renown. Correspondence of this character, 
first with the pioneers and later with their descendants, he 
actively conducted till within a few days of his death. 

In 1840 he commenced the work of supplementing his 
correspondence with personal interviews with pioneers, 
and the descendants of pioneers and Revolutionary soldiers, 
in their homes: because he found that for his purpose the 



1840-50.] LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 5 

gaining of information through letters was slow and unsat- 
isfactory, the mails being- in those days tardy, unreliable 
and expensive, while many of those who possessed the 
rarest of the treasures sought were not adepts with the 
pen. There were no railroads then, and the eager collector 
of facts traveled on his great errand for many years, far 
and wide, by foot, by horseback, by stage, by lumber 
wagon and by steamboat, his constant companion being a 
knapsack well- laden with note books. 

In these journeys of discovery, largely through dense 
wildernesses. Draper traveled, in all, over sixty thousand 
miles, meeting with hundreds of curious incidents and 
hairbreadth escapes, by means of runaway horses, fright- 
ful storms, swollen streams, tipped-over stages, snagged 
steamboats, extremities of hunger, and the like, yet never 
once injured nor allowing any untoward circumstance to 
thwart the particular mission at the time in view. Many 
of those he sought, especially before 1850, were far removed 
from taverns and other conveniences of civilization; but 
pioneer hospitality was general and generous, and a stran- 
ger at the hearth a most welcome diversion to the dull 
routine of a frontiersman's household. The guest of the 
interviewed, the inquisitive stranger often stopped weeks 
together at those crude homes in the New York, Ohio, Ken- 
tucky, Virginia and Tennessee backwoods — long enough 
to extract, with the acquired skill of a cross-examiner, 
every morsel of historical information, every item of valu- 
able reminiscence stored in the mind of his host; while old 
diaries, or other family documents which might cast side- 
lights on the stirring and romantic story of western settle- 
ment, were deemed objects worth obtaining by means of 
the most astute diplomacy. 

It would be wearisome to give a list of those whom 
Draper visited in the course of these remarkable wander- 
ings which he made his chief occupation, with but few 
lapses, through nearly a quarter of a century, and contin- 
ued at intervals for many years after. Only a few of the 
most notable can be mentioned. Perhaps the most import- 
ant interview he ever had was with Major Bland Ballard, 



6 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol. xii. 

of Kentucky, a noted Indian fig^hter under General George 
Rogers Clark in the latter's campaigns against the Ohio 
Indians. Other distinguished worthies who heaped their 
treasures at Draper's feet, were Major George M. Bedinger, 
a noted pioneer and Indian fighter, of Kentucky; General 
Benjamin Whiteman, of Ohio, and Captain James Ward, 
of Kentucky, two of Kenton's trusted lieutenants; and 
General William Hall, a general under Jackson in the 
Creek war, and afterward governor of Tennessee. Dra- 
per also interviewed fifteen of General Clark's old In- 
dian campaigners, and many of the associates and descend- 
ants of Boone, Kenton, Sumter, Sevier, Robertson, Pickens, 
Crawford, Shelby, Brady, Cleveland, and the Wetzels. He 
also visited and took notes among the aged survivors of 
several Indian tribes — the Senecas, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, 
Mohawks, Chickasaws, Catawbas, Wyandots, Shawanese, 
Delawares, and Pottawattomies. Not the least interesting 
of these were the venerable Tawanears, or Governor Black- 
snake, one of the Seneca war captains at Wyoming, who 
served as such with the famous Mohawk chief, Joseph 
Brant, and the scholarly Governor William Walker, of the 
Wyandots. The descendants of Brant among the Canada 
Mohawks, whom Draper interviewed at much length, gave 
him an Indian name signifying " The Inquirer." Draper 
once visited Andrew Jackson, at the home of the latter, 
and had a long conversation with the hero of New Orleans. 
At another time he was the guest of Colonel Richard M. 
Johnson, who is thought to have killed Tecumseh, and, as 
I have said before, frequently corresponded with him. He 
once saw Henry Clay, when in Kentucky on one of his 
hunts for manuscripts, and General Harrison, in Ohio, but 
had no opportunity to speak to either of them. 

The period of Draper's greatest activity in the direction 
of personal interviews was between 1840 and 3 879, but upon 
occasion he frequently resorted to that method of obtaining 
materials for history in his later years; while the period of 
his active correspondence in that direction was ended only 
by his death. The result of this half century of rare toil 
and drudgery was a rich harvest of collections. Upon the 



1840-79.1 LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 7 

shelves of his large private library, now the property of 
this Society, ^were, besides a still greater mass of loose 
papers, a hundred and fifty portly volumes of manu- 
scripts, the greater part made up of wholly original matter, 
nearly all of it as yet unpublished, covering the entire his- 
tory of the fight for the Northwest, from 1742, the date of 
the first skirmish with the Indians in the Virginia valley, 
to 1813-14, when Tecumseh was killed and the Creeks were 
defeated.' 

A few only of these unique documents can be noted in 
the time allotted me. The earliest manuscripts in the 
Draper collection are some documents concerning McDow- 
ell's fight in the Virginia valley, in 1743, just mentioned. 
There is also George Rogers Clark's original manuscript nar- 
rative of his famous expedition to Kaskaskiaand Vincennes 
in 1778, a volume of some two hundred and twenty -five 
pages. The earliest original manuscript diary in the col- 
lection is one kept by Captain William Preston, who com- 
manded a company under Lewis during the Sandy Creek 
expedition in West Virginia, in 1756. There are several 
diaries on the Point Pleasant campaign in West Virginia 
in 1774. Numerous diaries relate to Kentucky — one of them 
kept by Greorge Rogers Clark in 1776, and another by Col- 
onel William Fleming during an- early trip to the "dark 
and bloody ground." Some diaries on St. Clair's and 
Wayne's campaigns are of especial interest. But the fore- 
going are merely sample treasures. As the old frontier 
heroes were not noted for keeping diaries, the great num- 
ber and remarkable character of the rich material among 
the Draper manuscripts strongly illustrate to all those who 
have essayed collections of this sort, his arduous labors of 
a life-time. 

In 1841, while in the midst of his chosen task. Draper 

'He himself computed, in 1857, that his matei'ial comprised "some 
10,000 foolscap pages of notes of the recollections of warrioi -pioneers, 
either written by themselves, or taken down from their own lips; and well- 
nigh 5,000 ijages more of original manuscript journals, memorandum 
books, and old letters written by nearly all the leading border heroes of the 
Wes<i." 



8 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii. 

drifted to Pontotoc, in northern Mississippi, where he be- 
came part owner and editor of a small weekly journal 
entitled, Spirit of the Titnes.' The paper was not a 
financial success, and at the close of a year his partner 
bought him out, giving in payment the deed to a tract of 
wild land in the neighborhood. There came to Pontotoc, 
about this time, a young lawyer named Charles H. Larra- 
bee, afterward a prominent citizen of Wisconsin, where 
he became a circuit judge and a congressman. Larrabee 
had been a student with Draper at Granville. The pro- 
fessional outlook at Pontotoc not being rich with promise, 
Larrabee united his fortunes with those of his college-mate 
and together they moved upon Draper's tract. For about 
a year the young men " roughed it" in a floorless, window- 
less hut, a dozen miles from Pontotoc, the nearest post- 
office, raising sweet potatoes and living upon fare of the 
crudest character. In the summer of 1842 Draper received 
the offer of a clerkship under a relative who was Erie canal 
superintendent at Buffalo, and retraced his steps to the north, 
leaving Larrabee in sole possession. But the latter soon 
had a call to Chicago and followed his friend's example, 
leaving their crop of sweet potatoes ungarnered and their 
land to the mercy of the first squatter who chanced along. 
The following year, however. Draper was back again in 
Pontotoc, where he made some interesting "finds" in the 
chests of the Mississippi pioneers. In 1844 he returned to 
Remsen's household, then near Baltimore." After a time 
the family moved to Philadelphia, whither he accompanied 
them. For eight years thereafter Mr. Draper's principal 
occupation was the prosecution of his search for historical 
data, always collecting and seldom writing up any of his 

' " Spirit of the Ttmes — devoted to news, agriculture, commercial and 
literary intelligence." The prospectus for the venture, signed, " L eland and 
Draper," was dated May 8, 1841. The one copy of the little journal found 
among Dr. Draper's effects is dated September 18, 1841. 

^ He left Pontotoc in December, 1843. Journeying leisurely northward, 
visiting pioneers on the way, he called in March on Andrew Jackson, at 
the Hermitage. In a letter to The Perry (N. Y.) Democrat, dated Nash- 
ville, Tenn., March 16, 1844, he describes his visit and relates his conversa- 
tion with the ex-president. See ante, p. 79. 



1844-57-] LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 9 

material, for he was not willing to commence until he had, 
to his own satisfaction, exhausted every possibility of find- 
ing more. If the truth must be told, our collector had al- 
ready become so imbued with the zeal of collecting that he 
had come to look upon the digestion of his material as 
of secondary consideration. 

During this life in Philadelphia, he added miscellaneous 
Americana to the objects of his collection, and particularly 
old newspaper files, for he found that these latter were 
among the most valuable sources of contemporaneous in- 
formation on any given topic in history. He thus collected 
a unique library at the Remsen home, which came to at- 
tract almost as much attention among scholars as had his 
manuscript possessions. It was a time when there were 
few historical students or writers in America engaged in 
original research; as a specialist in the trans -Alleghany 
field, Draper practically stood alone. George Bancroft, 
Hildreth, S. G. Drake, Parkham, Sparks, Lossing and 
others, displayed much interest in the Draper collections, 
which several of them personally examined and publicly 
praised. They sent him encouraging letters, urging him to 
enter upon his proposed task of writing up the heroes of 
the border. 

In 1854, Lossing went so far as to enter upon a literary 
copartnership with Draper for the joint production of a 
series of border biographies: Boone, Clark, Sevier, Rob- 
ertson, Brady, Kenton, Martin, Crawford, Whitley, the 
Wetzels, Harmar, St. Clair, Wayne and others being 
selected. The titles of the several biographies were agreed 
upon at a meeting in Madison between Lossing and Draper; 
but while as a collector Draper was ever in the field, eager, 
enterprising and shrewd, as a writer he was a procrasti- 
nator, and nothing was done at the time. In 1857, he dis- 
played renewed interest in the scheme, and sent broadcast 
over the country a circular informing the public that the 
long-promised work was at last to be performed, and yet 
nothing came of it. 

Nineteen years had now elapsed since Draper had entered 
fully upon his career as a collector. Re had, up to that 



lO WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. fvol.xii 

time, made a collection of material perhaps nearly as val- 
uable in all essential points as it was at his death. His 
accumulations in after years were more in the direction of 
details, and much of this class of matter, in the getting of 
which he spent the last thirty-five years of his life, would 
doubtless be considered as unimportant by most historical 
writers imbued with the modern philosophizing spirit. 
Draper, however, considered no detail regarding his heroes 
as too trivial for collection and preservation. His design 
was to be encyclopaedic; he would have his biographies em- 
brace every scrap of attainable information, regardless of 
its relative merit. He has confessed to me, with some sad- 
ness, more than once, that he felt himself quite lacking in 
the sense of proportion, could not understand the principles 
of historical perspective or historical philosophy, and as 
for generalization he abhorred it. Yet his literary style 
was incisive, and he sometimes shone in controversy. 

" I have wasted my life in puttering," he once lamented, 
''but I see no help for it; I can write nothing so long as I 
fear there is a fact, no matter how small, as yet ungar- 
nered.'' It was as if he were a newspaper editor, fearing 
to put his journal to press because something else might 
happen when too late to insert it in that day's issue. 
Draper not only feared to go to press, but even refrained 
from writing up his notes, literally from an apprehension 
that the next mail might bring information which would 
necessitate a recasting of his matter. At the time of his 
contract with Lossing, he had completed some twenty chap- 
ters of his proposed Life of Boone — perhaps a half of the 
number contemplated. It is likely that this manuscript 
was written before he came to Madison; it seems certain, 
from its present appearance, that he added nothing to it 
during the succeeding thirty-four years of his life. Of 
his other projected biographies, I cannot find that he had 
written more than a few scattering skeleton chapters. 

On the 29th of January, 1849, the State Historical Society 
of Wisconsin had been organized at Madison. It had at 
first but a sickly existence, for there was no person at its 
service with the technical skill necessary to the advance- 



1852-54-] LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. "^ II 

ment of an undertaking of this character. Larrabee, Dra- 
per's old college mate, had drifted to Wisconsin, and was 
now a circuit judge. He was one of the founders of the 
Society. In full knowledge of the quality of his friend's 
labors, he urged upon his associates the importance of at- 
tracting such a specialist to Madison. Harlow S. Orton, to- 
day an associate justice of the Wisconsin supreme court, 
together with Governor Farwell and others, heartily co- 
operated with Judge Larrabee, and about the middle of 
October, 1852, Draper arrived in Madison. His patron 
Remsen had died the spring before, and the following year 
Draper married the widow, who was also his cousin.' The 
historian was then thirty-seven years of age, full of vigor 
and push, kindly of disposition, persuasive in argument, 
devoted to his life-task of collecting, self-denying in the 
cause, and of unimpeachable character. 

For various reasons, it was the Isth of January, 1854, be- 
fore the Society was thoroughly reorganized, and Draper, as 
corresponding secretary, made its executive officer. Then 
for the first time the institution began to move. The new 
secretary entered with joyous enthusiasm upon the under- 
taking of accumulating books for the library, relics and 
curiosities for the museum, portraits of pioneers for the 
gallery, and documents for publication in the Wisconsin 
Historical Collections. His administration opened with a 
library of but fifty volumes contained in a small case with 
glass doors that is to-day exhibited in our museum as a sug- 
gestive relic. The Society's library has now grown to 
nearly one hundred thousand pi'iceless volumes, and rich 
stores of pamphlets and manuscripts; its museum and art 
gallery annually attract over thirty-five thousand visitors; 
its possessions are probably marketable at nearly a mill- 
ion dollars, and in usefulness to the people of this state 
are beyond price. 

The story of the Society's remarkable progress is doubt- 

' On the 23d of May, 1888, Draper lost this his first wife, whose last years 
were those of a chronic invalid, a fact which did much to hamper him in 
his literary work. On the 10th of October, 1889, at Cheyenne, Wyo., he 
married Mrs. Catherine T. Hoyt, of that place, and she survives him. 



12 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii. 



less familiar to you all. By the close of the first year of 
his management, Secretary Draper had accumulated for 
the library a thousand books and a thousand pamphlets. 
In August, 1855, the Society — its treasures having hereto- 
fore been shown in the office of the secretary of state — 
moved into quarters in the basement of the Baptist church, 
still standing on Carroll street. On the first of January 
following, Daniel S. Durrie was chosen librarian, and still 
holds the position after thirty-six years of efficient service; 
as the secretary's lieutenant throughout this long period, 
we must not forget that to him, too, belongs no small 
measure of praise in any record of our institution. In Jan- 
uary, 1866, having outgrown its old quarters in the church, 
the Society — now with its museum and art gallery as well 
as library — was given rooms in the then new south wing of 
the capitol. In December, 1884, again pressed for space, 
we moved into the present south transverse wing, where 
we occupy three of the spacious floors; and the time is not 
far distant when our growing needs will necessitate 
another removal — then, we trust, into our own fire proof 
building. 

During the years 1858 and 1850, Secretary Draper served 
as state superintendent of public instruction. He was 
quite as efficient in this role as in that of antiquarian collec- 
tor. He was the originator of a bill establishing township 
libraries, and almost unaided secured its passage by the 
legislature in 1850. The people of the state raised in the 
first year of the Draper law a library fund of $88,784.78 to 
be expended for the several towns by a state library board; 
but in 1861, when the civil war broke out, and the resources 
of the commonwealth were taxed to the utmost to support 
its troops at the front, the well-digested library law was 
repealed and the money already accumulated transferred 
to other funds before a book could be purchased or the pro- 
posed board organized. It was not until 1887 — twenty- 
eight years after — that an act was again passed by the 
Wisconsin legislature, establishing township libraries for 
the education of rural communities. 

It may truly be said of State Superintendent Draper that 



1858-7 1. J LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. I3 

he was the first occupant of the office to take a broad grasp 
of its duties and responsibilities. He won enthusiastic en- 
comiums from Governor Randall, legislative committees, 
prominent educators in different portions of the country, 
and at various times in the annual reports of his appreci- 
ative successors in office, who came to realize, as they in 
turn examined the records of the department, what a com- 
plete and healthy revolution he had brought about in its 
management. 

While serving as state superintendent, he was ex-officio 
a member of the boards of regents of the University of Wis- 
consin and the state normal schools, respectively. He was 
particularly efficient in promoting the interests of the 
former, and, recognizing that " the true university of these 
days is a collection of books," devoted his energies to the 
founding of an adequate library for that institution. This 
service, as well as his life labors in promoting the cause of 
historical literature, was formally recognized by the state 
university in 1871, by the conferring upon him the degree of 
LL. D. — Granville having made him an M. A. just twenty 
years previous. 

So indefatigable was Dr. Draper in his labors for the ad- 
vancement of popular education, that there seemed good 
cause for fearing that he was for the time neglecting his 
especial task as a collector and editor of materials for 
Western history, and that he might permanently be diverted 
from it. For this reason, a number of distinguished educa- 
tors and historical students in various parts of the country 
sent him frequent letters protesting against his continuance 
in the new field at the expense of the old. 

Dr. Draper finally heeded these urgent calls for a return 
to his proper sphere of duty, and the year 18G0 found him 
back at his work in behalf of the State Historical Society, 
and in the prosecution thereof he never again lagged so 
long as he remained its corresponding secretary. 

In 18G9, we rather oddly find Dr. Draper preparing and 
publishing, in partnership with W. A. Croflfut, a well- 
known writer, a book of 800 pages entitled. The Helping 



14 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii. 

Hand: An American Home Book for Toimi and Country. 
It was a compilation, culled from newspapers and maga- 
zines, of suggestions and recipes appertaining to stock and 
fruit raising, domestic economy, agricultural economics, 
cookery, household medical remedies, etc. — a singular di- 
gression for an historical specialist. The publication came 
eventually into the toils of a law-suit, and the authors 
never realized anything from their labors. It was Dr. 
J)raper's first book. 

His next work was King's Mountain and its Heroes, an 
octavo volume of 612 ^ ages, published in 1881 by Peter G. 
Thomson, of Cincinnati. Unfortunately for the publisher 
and author, the greater part of the edition was consumed 
by fire soon after its issue, so that few copies are now ex- 
tant; although the stereotype plates a-re in existence. 
Aside from the border forays of whites and Indians, the 
really romantic portion of the history of the Revolution in 
the south is confined to the whig and tory warfare of the 
Carolinas, which was first fully treated in King's Moun- 
tain. The book was well received at the time; but in later 
years Winsor and others have criticised it as possessing the 
faults which have ever been conspicuous in Dr. Draper's 
treatment of his material: a desire to be encyclopa?dic. and 
a lack of proper historical perspective. But even with 
these faults. King's Mountain is, as a bulky storehouse of 
information obtained at first hand, regarding the Revolu- 
tionary war in the south, a permanently valuable contribu- 
tion to American historical literature. 

Tucked away in a volume of odds and ends upon our 
library shelves is a pamphlet' of fif^y pages, by Dr. Draper, 
entitled, Madison, the Capital of Wisconsin: Its Groiuth, 
Progress, Condition, Wants and Capabilities. It was our 
secretary's contribution in 1857 to the well-known " Far- 
well boom.'" No advertising pamphlet issued by Madison 
" boomers " since that day has been so comprehensive in 
details of statistics and description, or more gracefully 
written. It was in wide circulation throughout the country, 
thirty-four years ago, and thousands now living obtained 



1887-91 -J LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 1 5 

from its pages their first knowledge of Wisconsin's capital 
and the Four Lake region; yet to-day it is a literary 
rarity. 

' Dr. Draper rode many hobbies in his day. One of them 
was the collection of autographs of notable people, both 
for himself and for the Society. In 1887 appeared his 
Essay on the Autographic Collections of the tSigners of the 
Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution (New 
York; pp. 117). In the preparation of this monograph, 
which first appeared in Vol. X. of the Wisconsin Histor- 
ical Collections, he expended remarkable patience and in- 
dustry, and the result is a treatise so exhaustive that prob- 
ably none other will care to enter the field with him. 

The following year (Cincinnati, 1888), he appeared as 
editor of Forman's Narrative of a Journey dotvn the Ohio 
and Mississippi in 17S9-90. In this pamphlet of sixty-seven 
pages, he did much good work, bringing to bear upon the 
subject a quantity of illustrative material garnered from 
his own stores. This was Dr. Draper's last appearance in 
the book-market. 

I have spoken of the progress he had made upon his long- 
projected Life of Boone, and the few scattering chapters 
on other border heroes. He had also completed the manu- 
script for a volume on the so-called Mecklenburg Declara- 
tion of Independence of May, 1775 — a painstaking and 
most exhaustive monograph it certainly would have been, 
if finished. For some time he was engaged with Consul 
W. Butterfield, now of Omaha, in the preparation of a 
work to be entitled. Border Forays and Adventures; the 
manuscript appears to have been completed, but was never 
published. His last weeks of work were spent in preparing 
notes for a proposed republication by Robert Clarke & Co., 
Cincinnati, of Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare 
(Clarksburg, Va., 1831); he had annotated about one-third 
of the volume, and prepared a preface and memoir. He 
frequently contributed biographical articles to encyclo- 
paedias; some of the sketches of noted border heroes in 
Appleton's Cyclopcedia of American Biography are from 
his pen. 



l6 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xH. 

Perhaps one of the greatest difficulties under which Dr. 
Draper labored was that in his desire to inform the public 
he attempted too' much. The variety of plans for histor- 
ical works which for the last forty years of his life he had 
in various stages of preparation is quite astonishing. In- 
stead of completing these enterprises one at a time, he 
continually added to them all, never pausing in his zealous 
search for fresh details, ever hesitating in an excess of con- 
scientious caution to construct his proposed edifices, for 
fear that there might yet be found new and better quarries. 

Despite his ambition to work in a broader field, Dr. 
Draper's chief work as an historian was the editing and 
publication of the Wisconsin Historical Collections. Ten 
large octavo volumes of 500 pages each were issued 
under his editorship. These constitute a vast mass of 
original material bearing upon the history of the state, 
particularly the pre-territorial epoch: all of it gathered by 
Dr. Draper, either through personal solicitation of manu- 
scripts from prominent early pioneers, or by means of in- 
terviews with old-time celebrities, white and red, by the 
doctor himself. In the garnering of these materials for the 
early history of Wisconsin, the busy corresponding secre- 
tary traveled thousands of miles, wrote thousands of let- 
ters, and interviewed hundreds of individuals. Each pa- 
per in the ten volumes was carefully edited and annotated 
by this untiring worker, who brought to bear upon every 
important point a wealth of correlative illustration or 
needed correction. These volumes, a storehouse of original 
data bearing upon the history of our state, are enough of 
themselves fully to establish his reputation as an historical 
specialist. Their incalculable value to western historians 
has been frequently attested by the best of authority — 
Bancroft, Sparks, Parkman, Shea, Lossing, and others of 
lesser note, having frequently complimented Dr. Draper 
upon their excellence and practical irriportance, and em- 
phasized the debt which students of American history will 
always owe to him for them. 

Recognizing that his physical vigor was waning, yet as 
ambitious to complete his greater works as in his earlier 



1886-91. 1 LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 1 7 

years, and quite as confident that he would succeed in the 
task. Dr. Draper retired from the service of the Society at 
the close of the year 1886. Unfortunately for himself, he 
had accumulated so vast a flood of material that at last it 
was beyond his control, and although ever hopeful of soon 
commencing in earnest, he could but contemplate his work 
with awe. He thenceforth made no important progress. 

"Still puttering," he often mournfully replied, when I 
would inquire as to what he was doing; but his countenance 
would at once lighten as he cheerfully continued, "Well, 
I'm really going to commence on George Rogers Clark in a 
few days, as soon as I hear from the letters I sent to Ken- 
tucky this morning; but I am yet in doubt whether T ought 
to have a Boston or a New York publisher: what is your 
judgment?" It was ever the same story — always plan- 
ning, never doing. For this Society he was one of the 
most practical of men, and his persistent energy was re- 
warded by almost phenomenal success: but our work was 
pressing; in his own enterprises he could wait — till at last 
he waited too long. 

On the loth of August, 1891, ^le doctor suffered a para- 
lytic stroke, which was the beginning of the end. Never- 
theless, when partially recovered, he bravely returned to 
his desk, still confident that his projected series of a dozen 
huge biographies would yet leap from his pen when he was 
at last ready. So. full of hope, though physically feeble, he 
toiled on until again paralysis laid him low, and on the 
26th of August he passed quietly to the hereafter, his great 
ambition unattained, his Carcasonne unreached. Death 
had rung down the curtain on this tragedy of a life's 
desire. 

Short and slight of stature. Dr. Draper was a bundle of 
nervous activity. Almost to the last, his seventy-six 
years sat easily on his shoulders. Light and rapid of step, 
he was as agile as many a youth, despite the fact that 
he was seldom in perfect health. His delicately-cut feat- 
ures, which exhibited great firmness of character and the 

powers of intense mental concentration, readily brightened 
2 



l8 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [voLxii. 

with the most winning of smiles. By nature and by habit 
he was a recluse. His existence had been largely passed 
among his books and manuscripts, and he cared nothing 
for those social alliances and gatherings which delight the 
average man. Long abstention from general intercourse 
with men with whom he had no business to transact made 
him shy of forming acquaintances, and wrongly gained 
for him a reputation of being unapproachable. To him who 
had a legitimate errand thither, the latch-string of the fire- 
proof library and working " den" — which was hidden in a 
dense tangle of lilacs and crab trees in the rear of the bib- 
liophile's residence — was always out, and the literary her- 
mit was found to be a most amiable gentleman and a 
charming and often merry conversationist; for few kept 
better informed on current events, or had at command a 
richer fund of entertaining reminiscences. To know Dr. 
Draper was to admire him as a man of generous impulses, 
who wore his heart upon his sleeve, was the soul of purity 
and honor, did not understand what duplicity meant, and 
was sympathetic to a fault. 

Weighing his own words carefully and, as becoming an 
historical student, abhorring exaggeration, it is not fitting 
that what we say here of his life and work should be 
mere eulogy. Were he here in spirit and could speak, his 
words would be, " Tell the truth if you tell anything." 
Firm in the belief that such would be his will, I have with 
loving freedom talked to you of Dr. Draper as those found 
him who knew him best. 

If not a great man, he was to his generation an eminently 
useful one. He was perhaps the most successful of all col- 
lectors of material for American border history; and it will 
ever be a source of great regret to historical students that 
his unfortunate temperament as a writer, combined with 
the burden of his duties in behalf of this Society, prevented 
him from giving to the world that important series of 
biographies for which he so eagerly planned over half a 
century ago. He has generously left to us his materials — 
so much bricks and stone, ready for some aspiring archi- 
tect of the future; these will be of incalculable value to 



iSgi.] LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. I9 

original workers in many branches of western history, yet it 
would have been far better if Dr. Draper, who best knew 
the relative value of the papers he had so laboriously col- 
lected, could have himself interpreted his manuscripts. 

But even had Dr. Draper never been a collector of border 
lore, never entertained ambitions in a broader field, his 
work for this Society has of itself been sufficient to earn 
for him the lasting gratitude of the people of Wiscon- 
sin, and of all American historical students. The Society's 
library, which he practically founded and so successfully 
managed and purveyed for through a third of a century — 
and even fought for in many a day when its future looked 
dark indeed — will remain an enduring monument to his 
tireless energy as a collector of Americana; while the first 
ten volumes of Wisconsin Historical Collections attest to 
his quality as an editor of material for western history. 
Thus measured, his life was successful in a high degree; 
and now that this gentle scholar, of noble purpose, of won- 
drous zeal and self-denial in our cause, has at last laid down 
his weighty burden, and is with us in the flesh no more, we 
can say with one accord that the name of Lyman Copeland 
Draper shall ever be foremost in the annals of this Society 



20 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Dr. Draper wrote many newspaper articles, signed and 
unsigned, on historical, literary and political subjects. He 
was the author also of numerous addresses, appeals and 
leaflets, in the line of his work as a collector and as secre- 
tary of this Society. It is unnecessary fully to enumerate 
such ephemeral matter in the following list, although there 
are included therein a few items of this class, having some 
biographical interest. 

In the matter of his unpublished works, the two only are 
noted which apparently were finished ready for the printer. 
As mentioned in the memoir {ante, p. 15), his re-editing of 
Withers's Chronicles of Border Warfare was perhaps one- 
third done; the Life of Boone had possibly {ante, p. 10) 
been half finished; and upon others of his contemplated 
works he had made some progress, although for the most 
part meagre and tentative. 

NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES. 

Charles Carroll of CarroU^on, the last of thd signers. In Rochester 
(N. Y.) Gem, April 6, 1833. 

• Memoir of Weatherford, an Indian warrior. In Rochester (N. Y.) Oevi, 
April 26, 1834. 

Wilson's banditti — a western reminiscence. In Rochester (N. Y.) Gem, 
June n, 1836. 

Gen. George Rogers Clark. In Perry (Wyoming county, N. Y.) Demo- 
crat, January 29, 1845. 

Adventures of Capt. Robert Stobo, with some notice of La Force and 
Van Braam. In The Olden Time (Pittsburgh, Pa., August, 1846), i., p. 870. 

The Shawnee expedition in 17r)6. In The Virginia Historical Register 
(Richmond, January, 1852), v., p. 20. 

The Expedition against the Shawanoe Indians in 1756. Ibid (April, 
1852), p. 61. 

BOOKS. 

Madison, the capital of Wisconsin: its growth, progress, condition, 
wants and capabilities. Madison: Calkins & Proudfit, 1857. 8vo. pp.48. 

Tenth annual report on the condition and improvement of the common 
schools and educational interests of the state of Wisconsin, for the year 



1858-82.] LYMAN COPELAND DRAPER. 21 

1858. By Lyman C. Draper, state superintendent of public instruction. 
Madison: Published by the state, 1858. 8vo. pp. 397. 

Eleventh annual report (as above). Madison: Published by the state, 

1859. 8vo. pp. 205. 

(C!ompiled in connection with W. A. Crotfut.) A helping hand for town 
and country: an American home book of practical and scientific informa- 
tion concerning house and lawn; garden and orchard, field, barn and 
stable; apiary and fish pond; workshop and dairy; and the many impor- 
tant interests pertaining to domestic economy and family health. Intro- 
duction by Horace Greeley. Illustrated. Cincinnati: Chas. F. Wilstach 
& Co., 1870. 8vo. pp. 821. 

King's mountain and its heroes: history of the battle of King's moun- 
tain, October 7th, 1780, and the events which led to it. Portraits, maps, 
and i^lans. Cincinnati: Peter G. Thomson, 1881. 8vo. pp. 613. 

(Edited.) Narrative of a journey down the Ohio and Mississippi in 
1789-90. By Maj ?!amuel S. Forman. With a memoir and illustrative 
notes by Lyman C. Draper. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1888. 
12mo. pp. 67. 

An essay on the autographic collections of the signers of the declaration 
of independence and of the constitution. From Vol. Xth, Wisconsin 
Historical Society Collections. Revised and enlarged. Portrait of author. 
New York: Burns & Son, 1889. 4to. pp. 117. [Also in Wisconsin His- 
torical Collections, v. 10, 1888, pp. 373-447.] 

IN WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. 

(Edited.) Wisconsin Historical Collections. Vols. 1-10. Madison, 1855-88. 
8vo. 

Eulogy on Robert M. Sully. Vol. 3, 1855, pp. 63-71. 

(Edited.) Col. Shaw's narrative. Vol. 2, 1855, pp. 197-333. 

(Edited.) Augustin Grignon's recollections. Vol. 3, 1856, pp. 195-395. 

Historical notices of De Louvigny, Perrot, De Lignery, De Beaujeu, 
Marin, Du Buisson, De Villiers, De Noyelle, and St. Ange. Vol. 5, 1868, 
pp. 108-123. 

Note on Holein-the-day. Vol. 5, 1868, pp. 400-401. 

Additional note on the younger Hole-in the-day. Vol. 5, 1868, pp. 408-409. 

Michael St. Cyr, an early Dane county pioneer. Vol. 6, 1873, pp. 397-400. 

Sketch of the life and services of Hon. George Hyer. Vol. 6, 1872, 
pp. 136-149. 

Notice of Match e-ke wis, the captor of Mackinaw. Vol. 7, 1876, 
pp. 188-194.- 

Ancient copper implements. How fabricated. Vol. 8, 1879, pp. 165-167. 

Additional notes on Eleazer Williams. Vol. 8, 1879, pp. 358-369. 

(Edited.) Traditions and recollections of Prairie du Chien, as related by 
B. W. Brisbois, and noted down and annotated by Lyman C. Draper. 
Vol. 9, 1883, pp. 383-303. 



22 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. [vol.xii. 



Sketch of Hon. Charles H. Larrabee. Vol. 9, 1883, pp. 366-388. 
Early French forts in western Wisconsin. Vol. 10, 1888, pp. 321-372. 
Autograph collections of the signers of the declaration of independence 
and of the constitution. Vol. 10, 1888, pp. 373-447. 
Wisconsin necrology, 1874-83. Vols. 7-10, 1876-88. 

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS. 

Moral and religious instruction in public schools. Madison: 1858. 4to. 
pp.4. 

Pre-historic Wisconsin antiquities. [Madison]: 1881. 8vo. pp. 4. 

Sketches of Arthur Campbell and George Rogers Clark. In Appleton's 
Encyclopcedia of American Biography. Vol. 1, 1888. 



IN MANUSCRIPT, UNPUBLISHED. 

The Mecklenburg declaration: its origin, history and actors. With a 
bibliography of its literature, and explanatory documents, pp. 474, folio. 

(Joint author, with C. W. Butterfield.) Border forays and adventures: 
being romantic passages in American history, embx-acing the most striking 
episodes and incidents from the first settlement of the country to the close 
of the Revolution. From the frontiers of New York and Canada to the 
Gulf of Mexico. About 400 pp. , f oho. 



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